Auction

Who will start at 500? Somebody give me 400, down a quarter, now half? Okay, who will start me at $10, for this fine, yearling, stud colt? I remember, maybe two years ago, sitting beside a sale ring, and wittnessing this for the first time. Having grown up around the sale rings all my life, my father brought me to my first sale, when I could look up to see the belly of a short lizard, on a cool rock, on a hot day. If anyone would have told him that he could buy a full load of horses with a hundred dollar bill, it would have knocked him over. Even as a kid, a horse that walked on three, milked on one, and could see out of none, was still worth more than a hundred dollars. I marked the feeling that day in the sale ring, scores of horse owners with reality of the value, of the horse flesh at their own homes, evaporating in one failed swoop. They were all very quiet, perhaps remembering that they had just written checks for good alfalfa hay, for a high as $200 per ton. The mood was somber. I feel, without public auction, the horse market will never bounce back. We have read article after article that the high-end horse has not been affected. What a lie! Graphs show in 2009, more than 50% of the registered mares in our country, were left uncovered by the nations top stallions. With statistics like that, how can top breeders not be affected? Auction goers will pay more for a billy goat, than they will a horse. Why is it that champagne drinkers will pay more for art, at an auction than it is worth, but look down upon the sale of a horse, sold with the same method? The horse community as a whole, needs to work together, to find a solution for this problem. So many equestrian enthusiast have yet to admit.... there is a problem.